Liriano was a heart-breaker especially in his early Twins days when he looked for all the world like he would be Johann Santana 2.0. That's an excellent choice.
I wonder who would make an all-time fantasy pain in the ass team. Jason Hamel is notorious for tricking people into thinking he's better than he is. I'd probably slot him in the rotation along with Kazmir. Jason Heyward and Justin Upton are pretty notorious fantasy teases. Good players but people have frequently overpayed for them because they were supposed to be superstars.
Navarro is not under control (and also not at a very good option even if he were). A.J. Jimenez is currently the backup catcher. He's been in the system for a long time. He can't hit a lick.
Seems like a nice compromise to keep everyone happy. He gets slightly more than the q.o. but the Jays have slightly less than the q.o. on the books this year. I like that a lot for both sides.
Valbuena's flexibility is very appealing. Makes it easier to carry Zeke if you are concerned about losing him to lack of options because you're not adding another OF only player. It also makes it easier to move on from Smoak as you said and it would give the team a backup 3B option that's isn't just a glove only guy. He just fits in a lot of ways and I'm a fan of him generally. I wish he had never gotten away.
What North said about mutual options pushing guaranteed money into an extra year holds true regardless of whether the mutual option is exercised in that second year.
It's exactly the same thing if you read his second sentence. Anyways... no need to get testy. It ultimately just gives more credence to what you're saying.
Nobody wanted to go long term with Bautista and from his perspective the next best thing to getting a long term contract now was signing a one year contract and hitting the market without compensation attached next year. He's a good bet to match or improve on last year's numbers so I like if for him and I like if for the the Jays. One year with a team option would have been amazing for the Jays but verry puzzling for José.
We could have got to this point a whole lot easier if he had just accpeted the q.o. but it is what it is. Both sides wanted something better. Both sides ran out of time.
How seriously can we take an article from Fansided? One written by Marty McFly (!!!) to boot.
http://filmgarb.com/wp-content/uploads/film-back_to_the_future_2-1989-marty_mcfly-michael_j_fox-accessories-hat.jpg
I'll let him get a reply in if he wants but after that this topic should be dropped from the main forum. I don't want to derail a discussion about real, actual Blue Jays news with this stuff. There's an OT board for that.